Governing the Future City

Biography

I did my undergraduate, Hons and MA studies in Geography at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, followed by a PhD in Geography at the University of Cambridge. I worked for some years in the first of half of the 1990s at University of KwaZulu-Natal, before some time at the LSE and then a good long stint at The Open University, with a super group of colleagues working collectively on what it might mean to think spatially. I have been at UCL since October 2009. Here I am active in the Urban Laboratory, a cross-University network for Urban Studies.

2016. Comparative Urbanism: New Geographies and cultures of theorising the urban, in Robinson, J. and Roy, A. (eds) International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Debates and Developments Symposium, Global Urbanisms and the Nature of Urban Theory. Vol 40, No. 1, pgs 187-199.

2014. New Geographies of Theorising the Urban: Putting Comparison to Work for Global Urban Studies, in S. Parnell and S. Oldfield (eds) Handbook for Cities of the Global South. London: Routledge. Pgs 57-70

2011. Cities in a World of Cities: The comparative gesture’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35, 1: 1-23 (2nd most downloaded article for IJURR as recorded by October 2011 and October 2012; 2nd most cited article for 2012)

2007. The Handbook of Political Geography (Edited with Kevin Cox and Murray Low). London: Sage.

2007. Development and new forms of democracy in Durban. Urban Forum. 18, 265-287. [Reversioned and translated for publication in French in Revue Tiers-Monde, edited special issue by Claire Bénit, 2008]. (with Richard Ballard, Debby Bonnin and Thokozani Xaba)

Robinson, J. (1996) The Power of Apartheid: State, Power and Space in South African Cities, London, Butterworth-Heinemann.

Research

My current research interests focus on developing a postcolonial critique of urban studies. My book, Ordinary Cities (2006) looks at how the interplay between urban modernity and development frames a conceptual and practical divide between "Western" and "Third World" cities. The book develops the claim that urban theory needs to be more cosmopolitan in the resources it draws on; and argues that urban development policies need to move beyond developmentalism and draw on the wider cultural and economic resources of urbanism in poorer cities. More recent writing extends this argument to develop appropriate methods and tactics for international theorisation of 21st century cities, organised around the conceptualisation of comparative urbanism, and a book on this topic is under preparation. Grant applications and research in progress explore questions of the geopolitics of policy mobility; international theorisation of global city-regions; and activist research on London’s city strategies. These all take forward methodological experiments for an international urban theory.

Previous research has centred on the relationship between power and space, specifically in cities and mostly in relation to South African politics. For example, I have written on the 1936 Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg to explore spaces of racial interaction in South African cities. I have also written on issues in feminist politics, including questions of difference and methodology, and more recently on the implications of Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic writing for feminist theorizations of space. More broadly, I have explored ways of postcolonializing the theoretical and empirical practices of Geography.

Impact

Summary

Critiques of global and world cities: A seminal critique of the dominant global and world cities analysis with respect to its implications for wider urban studies and for the politics of development in poorer cities has been drawn on in background and published policy documents which have informed the conceptualisation of urban development in South African cities, e.g. the background review document for the 2006-2011 Growth and Development Strategy which scoped international experience in city strategies and established an approach to Johannesburg’s strategic policy. Robinson was invited to speak to city councillors and officials in Johannesburg on various occasions (2004; 2011) and on their study tour to London (2006) informing ongoing strategic policy development in this period. The research is planned to be taken forward in a collaboration with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) on conceptualising global city-regions.

City Strategies: Studies of the politics of Johannesburg’s City Strategy led to Robinson being invited to review and comment on the draft revised GDS2040 at the Johannesburg City Council’s international conference as part of the consultation process in October 2011, including speaking to a mass public gathering and on the main morning news television. These contributions encouraged the strategy’s commitment to a broadly balanced and locally resonant range of policy commitments.

Examples of Impact:

1) Desktop review of international experiences with city strategies to which Robinson inputs were noted as helpful – document available from Robinson.

8) Building links with community groups involved in the London Plan processes, as co-organiser of a joint Urban Salon and Just Space network conference, June 2011 (http://justspace2010.wordpress.com/welcome-to-just-space/about-2/9-june-2011-conference/); ongoing collaborations through community-based teaching (URBNG007) and collaborative research activities, including comparative work on the London Plan and the Johannesburg GDS with links to supporting community participation through Planact explored in collaborative work with Barbara Lipietz at the DPU( http://www.planact.org.za/).

Teaching

I have been at UCL since October 2009, teaching on MSc courses (Thinking Space, Globalisation, Methods, City space and power, Comparative Urbanism, Community Participation in City Strategies) and 1st year (Global Geographies), 2nd year (Urban Geography) and 3rd year (Comparative Urbanism) courses.

Jens Kandt (2011) Comparative study of Health care provision and space in London and Hong Kong.

Alvaro Sanchez-Jiminez (2012) A comparative study of local government responses to fiscal crisis in Spain and Argentina

Rita Lambert (2013) Comparative study of community mapping in Lima and Addis Ababa.

We meet regularly as a group to discuss recent developments in urban theory and comparative urbanism. I welcome applications from students eager to take forward international and comparative approaches in urban studies.